Australian Ian Muldoon reveals prison hell in Cambodia after his drink was spiked

An Qld man has revealed his seven months of hell while banged up in a Cambodian jail, where he was beaten, gang raped and extorted. Listen to the podcast. Warning: Graphic content

Exclusive: Australian dad Ian Muldoon was on the trip of a lifetime to Cambodia, but it turned into a nightmare when he was arrested and jailed for breaking an ATM screen after being drugged at a local bar.

Mr Muldoon, a forklift driver from Coolangatta, was repeatedly gang-raped, beaten, and extorted during seven months of hell at Prey Sar Prison, following his initial arrest at Siem Reap International Airport in July 2023.

Speaking publicly for the first time about his ordeal, he opened up to this masthead, and to Gary Jubelin in the I Catch Killers podcast, about how he fell asleep each night to the sound of inmates being tortured, and too often woke up next to another dead body.

Ian Muldoon was jailed in Cambodia after having his drink spiked. Picture: Adam Head

CCTV shows show Ian Muldoon in front of the ATM machine in Cambodia. He was drugged and fell into it

Mr Muldoon said going to Cambodia wasn’t part of his original plan — he was supposed to fly to Vietnam — but made a last-minute decision to see Angkor.

Two days into his 18-day trip, he went to a bar near his hotel. His biggest regret was ringing a cowbell inside the bar, which meant he had to shout a round for all 15 local patrons at the venue.

By ringing the bell, he unwittingly alerted locals to the fact that he had money.

“I ordered a Jack Daniels and Coke, and about a third of the way through it I got up from the table and went to the bathroom, leaving my drink on the table,” he said. “I returned and had a few more sips out of my drink and then started to feel really strange.”

He had a sudden migraine, his speech became slurred and he couldn’t walk properly. When he went to pay the tab, the bartender said he didn’t have enough local currency and gave him directions to a nearby ATM at a convenience store.

Two men followed him out of the bar and to the ATM. By the time he got there, he could hardly stand.

“I tried on three or four occasions to put my card in the ATM machine, without success. I then fell forward. It felt like I fell in slow motion. I fell forward with one hand, I protected my face and the other hand landed on the glass and made a small crack in the screen,” he said.

Ian Muldoon fell into the ATM and the glass smashed (pictured).

Pictured: The broken ATM glass. Ian Muldoon was jailed over the incident, which happened because he was drugged.

Mr Muldoon stumbled back to his hotel. He assumed the two men had drugged him and intended to rob him, but they didn’t follow him back to his room. He woke with a thumping headache and went back to the bar to pay the tab.

About two weeks later, when he tried to board a plane to Bangkok, he was stopped by border security who told him there was a black mark against his name.

From there, his situation spiralled. Armed authorities asked why he was trying to flee Cambodia after breaking the ATM in Phnom Penh.

He was shuffled from police holding cells to court rooms, denied access to English translators to decipher legal documents, and imprisoned for months without charge.

There were about 400 inmates to a cell and the conditions were squalid. The heat and humidity was stifling, the toilet bucket overflowed, and disease was rife – everyone had golden staph, scabies, gastro, and a host of STIs.

On his second night, he saw a boy get raped and was haunted by the screams. Another inmate was handcuffed to the back of the cell because he was sick and couldn’t stop using the toilet bucket. A group of men took it in turns beating him. The next morning, the sick inmate was dead.

Ian Muldoon is pictured at the airport at Siem Reap, while being questioned by police over the broken ATM screen.

He once tried to revive an inmate who stopped breathing during the night. He screamed for help but no one came. After that, Mr Muldoon was beaten until he was unconscious. “It’s hard to witness this behaviour, but if you said or did anything, you would be next,” he said.

During the wet season, a cobra slithered into the cell. Another prisoner grabbed and whip-cracked it, killing it. The next day, a group of inmates were eating it.

His saving grace was his ex-partner in Australia, who maintained contact with the embassy and local lawyers. She was able to transfer him money via the embassy, which he was then charged AU$130 to access. The charge for a phone call was $20, clean water and food that wasn’t infested with maggots was costly, and he was charged $47 per month to sit up against a wall in a cell.

The penalty for his charge, intentionally damaging an ATM, kept changing from $12,500 to $23,500 to $39,000, “to fix a piece of glass that would have cost $100,” he said.

Ian Muldoon is pictured moments after his release from prison.

Eventually, he was sentenced to seven months behind bars. He estimated that he spent $155,000 on phone calls, food, water, legal fees, penalties, and bribes ahead of his release in March 2024. He was able to pay due to his inheritance from his mother.

On his first night out of prison, he had a warm shower and scrubbed himself until his skin bled. “I sat on the floor of the shower and cried for about an hour,” he recalled.

The Australian Embassy visited Mr Muldoon in jail and gave him some soap and a toothbrush, but repeatedly told him: “We are bound by Cambodian law and there is nothing we can do for you.”

He is now trying to rebuild his life, but can’t escape the fact that he felt abandoned by the Australian government.

A spokesperson for DFAT confirmed consular assistance was given to an Australian in Cambodia.

Originally published as Australian Ian Muldoon reveals prison hell in Cambodia after his drink was spiked